Pickup crashes into train

Tuesday

Feb 18, 2014 at 5:30 PM

By John MulcahyDaily Telegram Staff Writer

An Ohio man escaped injury when his pickup crashed into one car of a Canadian Pacific Railway train at 11:28 a.m. Saturday on Munson Highway at the Norfolk Southern railroad crossing in Medina Township, according to a Lenawee County sheriff’s department report released Tuesday.

Jacob A. Keefer, 31, of Paulding, Ohio, was driving south on Munson Highway and could not stop at the railroad crossing because of ice on the road, according to the report.

Keefer’s pickup hit the second car of a train being pulled by two engines, the report said. Keefer told deputies he got out of the truck’s passenger side door while the train was coming to a stop.

The southbound lane of Munson Highway was snowy and had ice on part of it, the report said. Seven of eight warning lights at the crossing were working, according to the report. One warning light on the southbound side of the road was bent down but flashing red, the report said.

There is no guard arm at the crossing, the report said.

The train’s conductor, Richard M. Cash, 58, of Elkhart, Ind., said he saw Keefer’s pickup from the corner of his eye but couldn’t say what happened other than the pickup hit the second car of the train. The crash somehow unhooked a connection between two cars of the train, the report said.

Keefer, Cash and another man in the train, Bradley Kirsch, 54, of Elkhart, Ind., were all uninjured.